Do you use flight following when flying VFR?

Which fits best?

  • Total voters
    151
  • Poll closed .
Took a tower/approach tour recently. They love us getting FF even for just maneuvering. Helps their contact count for one thing but more importantly they know who you are and can talk to you if they are trying to get an IFR flight in instead of saying unknown traffic showing 4500ft westbound.
 
Why bother ... all my flying is for fun , having to remember to talk to somebody and answer them is just a distraction I can do without.
 
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes I like to fly to get away from people and enjoy the silence. Generally when I’m doing that I stay within gliding distance of civilization. There are times I’ll fly half a flight without and pick it up enroute. Usually because my destination is a bravo so it just makes the entry that much easier.
 
Pretty much never. Can’t really say why, other than half the time I can’t tell them where I’m going or why or anything else, because I don’t know myself.
 
90% of the time VFR I get FF, 10% is nothing but I always monitor if so. It's about the situational awareness. If blip N12345 is same altitude but I hear that they're flying a grid/pattern/practice/holds I'm that much more aware. Plus ATC can tell one of us to deviate as necessary. I have run into military traffic not ADSB equipped and even a Cessna that got too close for comfort, so ATC is my friend.
 
DaleB said:
Pretty much never. Can’t really say why, other than half the time I can’t tell them where I’m going or why or anything else, because I don’t know myself.
Click to expand...
Just tell them you are site seeing, heading west for now.
 
Depends. Local flying where I'll not be in the charlie space? Not. If sight seeing over the downtown area I'll be in their space, so yes. Any flight away from the local area, yes.
 
I try to be in system just about any time. IFR if not too inconvenient routing as it is good practice to be in the system and an extra bubble of security. If weather nice and routing is just plain crazy will go with FF.
 
My little puddle jumper weighs 557lbs EW. Its steel tube and fabric fuselage with aluminum wings. I don't present much of a primary target on radar a lot of the time. I've checked this out with approach a couple of times. They'd see my primary target, then lose me. I'd always get "remain clear of class (B)(C) airspace, resume own navigation. It seemed to me like the controller was saying, "nice try buddy. But, without a transponder, you're just too much trouble." I've flown up to 300 miles straight line distance from my home field with just a flight plan on file and a copy of my nav log on my desk at home. I carry a PLB instead of an ELT. And, as a single seat, am not required to have one (which I don't want in this airplane).
 
Just remember if on FF, you’re still responsible to see and avoid.
I don’t use it on local flights, but will monitor controlling frequencies for situational awareness.
 
Usually I get FF for cross country trips, but I enjoy the peace & quiet of not listening to ATC if I’m not in a busy area. FWIW, I think pilots drastically overestimate the likelihood of midair collisions outside the pattern/approach corridor, and seeing an airplane pass 2000 feet away shouldn’t cause gnashing of teeth.
 
I pick up flight following on every flight that I feel it would be useful which typically is every cross country. I fly in and around the LA basin which is full of class D and has multiple class C and then there’s always the big one, KLAX. FF helps a lot in transitioning all the airspace around and navigating the C and B arrival/ departure paths.
 
If you don't get it, particularly in busy airspace, you are adding unnecessary risk to yourself, your passengers and people in other airplanes. Cowboys regularly fly through localizers and RNAV approach courses, not talking to anyone, endangering everyone around them.

steingar said:
Nope. For the most part I see what they see. Don't see the value. Of course, the vast majority of my flights are over populated terrain. I would probably feel differently were I flying somewhere more remote.
Click to expand...

How do you not see the value? Populated areas coincide with busy airspace, which is definitely a time you need FF.

Grum.Man said:
Never
Click to expand...

forsonsinc said:
Never
Click to expand...

Why?
 
Always, for cross country as well as tooling around in the practice area
 
Never
I don't fly in the busy east coast or SoCal airspace.
I fly in the Midwest under a single Class B in and out of a Class D airport.
I'm using a battery powered handheld radio, if I burn up my radio batteries I have no way of getting back home into my Class D airport. Battery power is everything.
When skirting around the Class B, I know where the guys are doing 200 kts at 2500' and I stay below that at 2000' which is 1000' AGL.
Most of my flights are away from the Class B area and are somewhat random wandering for pleasure.
If I were flying a more normal plane like a Skyhawk or something like you guys are and going places, well that's a different story.
 
N1120A said:
If you don't get it, particularly in busy airspace, you are adding unnecessary risk to yourself, your passengers and people in other airplanes. Cowboys regularly fly through localizers and RNAV approach courses, not talking to anyone, endangering everyone around them.



How do you not see the value? Populated areas coincide with busy airspace, which is definitely a time you need FF.





Why?
Click to expand...
I’d rather not be bothered nor bother them. I want to do what I want without having to explain my actions to a controller. If I see something on the ground that interest me I may want to swoop down and take a look. Most of my flying is 1-2 hour hops between a bunch of airports.
 
N1120A said:
If you don't get it, particularly in busy airspace, you are adding unnecessary risk to yourself, your passengers and people in other airplanes. Cowboys regularly fly through localizers and RNAV approach courses, not talking to anyone, endangering everyone around them.
Click to expand...
If that's the case, your ire should be directed at the FAA.
 
N1120A said:
If you don't get it, particularly in busy airspace, you are adding unnecessary risk to yourself, your passengers and people in other airplanes. Cowboys regularly fly through localizers and RNAV approach courses, not talking to anyone, endangering everyone around them.
Click to expand...
I’m not familiar with the accident statistics on this. Can you point to some examples of crashes that VFR traffic advisories (a/k/a flight following) could have prevented?
 
Depends where I am going. Headed south from home airport, I will get it because its pretty busy with flight training and airliners. North, most of the time I won't get it. If I am headed into Maine I will get it so I can fly through Portland's Class C.
 
Why?[/QUOTE]
It is not necessary.. love your plane
 
Tried it when flying in and out of Scottsdale. All I got was vectors to fly around certain areas, I was flying VFR in uncontrolled airspace. On the way back into Phoenix area, when I didn't know one of the "mountain parts" the controller asked, I got the stamp "dangerous".. They kept asking if I was familiar with the airspace and needed to stay out of the B airspace... Never hit any airspace or was going to. First and last time in that area :).
 
dennisc172 said:
Tried it when flying in and out of Scottsdale. All I got was vectors to fly around certain areas, I was flying VFR in uncontrolled airspace. On the way back into Phoenix area, when I didn't know one of the "mountain parts" the controller asked, I got the stamp "dangerous".. They kept asking if I was familiar with the airspace and needed to stay out of the B airspace... Never hit any airspace or was going to. First and last time in that area :).
Click to expand...

Phoenix can be complicated. They have mountains north and east, a large school at KDVT, in the south there is the “stack” where you’ll hold waiting for to do practice approaches. Multiple jump schools. This is when IFR is nice, they don’t expect you to know VFR visual waypoints, they’ll just vector you around the edge of Bravo airspace.
 
If I use flight following it means I need to know where I'm going. :D On a local flight I tend to wander. Go look at streams or lakes I want to fish, geographic features, do a touch and go. Just enjoy out flying around below 3000'.

If, like yesterday, I had someone along and could get a couple approaches in call up approach and get FF and if I'm going someplace I use FF (and have to for about 180 degrees of my departures since that's SFRA country). Really going places or any chance of weather file IFR, Although, going MD up to NE with good weather I'll cancel IFR if the vectors off my route get too bad. Last trip up I stayed IFR since I knew there was a low layer at the beach destination and I was going to need to fly an approach and it added 25 minutes to a normal 2 hour flight.
 
N1120A said:
How do you not see the value? Populated areas coincide with busy airspace, which is definitely a time you need FF.
Click to expand...
Like I said, I see what they see. Leaving them out of the equation gives me one less thing to do.
 
Salty said:
No you don't.
Click to expand...
Bananas. Some of the big terminal areas have primary radar, so they'll catch something without a transponder. That's it. Moreover, mid air collisions are the rarest form of aviation accident. There are usually fewer than I can count on the fingers of one hand on a yearly basis.
 
It has been my experience that since I got the ADSB setup installed , every time I got alerted to some traffic ( I don’t do flight following but I do fly into D class airspace airports ) I already had it on my 796 ... so yeah, at this point I don’t see much value talking to ATC.
 
I have had instances when I've been on flight following and saw ADSB traffic that ATC did not advise me about (likely they saw it and knew it wasn't a factor). I've also had ATC advise me about traffic that didn't show up on my ADSB feed (likely not ADSB-out equipped).

Why wouldn't I want both? This isn't an either/or decision.
 
I've had traffic pointed out that did not show up on my traffic screen, the controller told me primary target, no altitude info. Quite a few times actually. I just flew a couple legs today, VFR, no flight following. First time in a while. I felt naked, seriously, but it was fine. Flew into a busy Delta, called 12 miles out, nbd, but I still will use FF more often than not, it's just safer and keeps you out of approach corridors, which are everywhere around here and tough to keep track of.
 
"Do you use flight following when flying VFR?"

Nope, I only use it when I'm IFR.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top